Home Care in Middleton

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NSES’ Dawn Karolides Forever Inspired by Women in Transition Program
- Jayne Girodat

North Shore Elder Services (NSES) has bragging rights to having a team of dedicated, caring, and talented employees. You find these people in management, in our front-line workers of nurses, care managers, social workers, meals drivers, and in our team of administrative (behind-the-scenes) people. A newer addition to our care management team is Dawn Karolides.

Dawn joined NSES in October of 2018. She came to us from working as a Mental Health Counselor at a hospital for six years. Dawn’s path to her work in human services has been anything but easy.

At the age of eleven, Dawn was diagnosed with a very rare disease; Myasthenia Gravis (MG). Being diagnosed as a child with MG was unheard of at the time. It was a year before doctors could determine what was causing her many symptoms.

Myasthenia Gravis is an autoimmune disease. The immune system attacks the body’s own tissues and interrupts the connection between nerve and muscle.

There were great periods of remission for Dawn. However, in 2008, the disease attacked Dawn at full throttle. She was placed on immune suppressant therapy, receiving high doses of steroids for two years. The toll on her body was devastating with every bad side effect being experienced. Unable to work, Dawn lost her home, money, physical strength, and confidence.

Dawn had always been independent. She was a licensed Massage and Reiki practitioner, an elder service provider and a professional foster parent (to over 48 foster children over the course of twenty years). She was a single mother to an adopted son who was born without legs and with fetal alcohol syndrome.

With no idea of what to do next and questioning if she could recover from this setback, Dawn describes, “stumbling” across a newspaper story on the subject of the Women in Transition program (WIT) at North Shore Community College, run by Dr. Figgins-Hill.

“My body was still swollen from steroids when I met with Dr. Figgins-Hill. She was so full of life and it was her belief in the transformative power of the WIT program that planted a seed of hope and convinced me to apply.”

The WIT program was a yearlong certificate program. Dawn had not pursued a college degree and considered this an opportunity to secure further education.

She graduated from WIT in 2011, completed her Associates degree at North Shore Community College in 2013, and went on to graduate from Merrimack College with a Bachelor of Science degree in 2015.

Dawn describes how life affirming and life changing the WIT program was for her.

“I was changed by the WIT program. I didn’t reclaim my old confidence. I found a new stronger self through the sharing and caring cohort and the instructors’ guidance. The classes were crafted for self-assessment. The support of the group moving through the classes together heightened the opportunity for reflection and growth. The instructors were truly vested in my development as a student.”

“That little seed planted by Dr. Figgins-Hill rooted and grew and continues to blossom. I am – and will always be – grateful for the WIT program.”

Clearly, Dawn is an ambassador for the program. She has a connection with and heart for WIT. She serves as one of their success stories and promotes the program in various marketing pieces “whenever Dr. Figgins-Hill asks.”

Today Dawn is juggling full time work as a care manager at NSES and caregiving for her now twenty-six year old thriving son.

Her passion is taking care of the caregivers. “We are the worst at taking care of ourselves. You have to be mindful about self-care.” As one of her paintings points out, we need to fill our own cup first.

Dawn’s other passion is for art. She had always been creative and as a healer, understood the balance of art in one’s life and its healing powers.

She found painting after a fall down a flight of stairs left her with several injuries (including a broken foot), which immobilized her. Her mother brought her paints and another passion was born.

Dawn discovered Cosmic Smash Booking and became a certified guide in the process. Cosmic Smash Booking is an Intentional Creativity process that takes simple art journaling supplies and techniques and transforms the way one creates. – using the left and right brain, and using art and writing.

Dawn’s path, strewn with challenges, brought her to NSES. We are the beneficiaries of that fork in the road turn as are our older adults in the communities we serve ... See MoreSee Less